


From Cut Palms and Bleeding Hearts

by drabblesinthemoonlight



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Female Tony Stark, Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Pre-Iron Man 1, Suicidal Thoughts, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark-centric, i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-09-27 08:00:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17158256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drabblesinthemoonlight/pseuds/drabblesinthemoonlight
Summary: From childhood to gasping breaths let's hurt a bit together.(Although it is marked complete I might add more as I go.)





	1. Toni And The Machine

**Author's Note:**

> The ones and zeroes are intentional.

Her mother taught her piano. Boney hands over her smaller ones guiding across the keys. Taught her how to arch her hands.    
  
_ “Like puppy paws,”  _ Toni’s mother would say as if sharing a particularly amusing secret.    
  
The sheet music was an algorithm, her hands the instrument. Just like the buzz of a machine turned candy to the ears.     
  
Toni remembered painting her nails to coordinate with each note.    
  
C   
  
D   
  
E   
  
F   
  
G   
  
A    
  
B    
  
_ 01100010 01100101 01100001 01110101 01110100 01101001 01100110 01110101 01101100. _   
  
Years later, when asked why she doesn’t keep her nails long and extravagant like so many other celebrities do she lets an innuendo slip off her tongue.    
  
But really it’s to play, in remembrance of her mother and artistic expression for her need to create. Some might find it surprising, given the music she plays in her workshop.    
  
It doesn’t matter.    
  
It was hers.


	2. Poison For The Soul And Aspirin For The Body

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: suicidal ideation   
> tw: alcoholism   
> tw: drug abuse

Toni remembers how gentle her mother was with each record, nails short but painted to perfection placing the vinyl on the turntable with the care of a priceless glass figurine. The soft but sorrowful curl of her lips when she called certain singers, _'tortured souls'._   
  
The ones who died because of a downward spiral of substance abuse and no outlet to ease their depression and anger aside from the lyrics poured from their souls. Dying young because they couldn’t reach out to anyone. Or because they stretched with the open palms of their music for ease of suffering and no one who listened knew how.   
  
Toni’s strung out on grief. She’s feeling carved inside because of the vomit, and her eyes sting with a migraine pounding to a staccato beat. Toni idly wonders if her mother would consider her a tortured soul too.   
  
As her eyes trace the path of the that snowflakes float lazily outside the frosted window Toni can’t decide.   
  
Maybe she isn’t because she isn’t dead yet.   
  
Maybe she is because she’s already on her way there. 

It doesn't matter. 

Her mother's gone. 


	3. Season's Greetings

There’s a thing that people do when they greet each other: they ask how they’re doing. Toni isn’t exempt from this, she does it all the time.   
  
However, there’s this one thing that the people who invented the tradition didn’t account for. That when someone says their day sucked, they are then obligated to elaborate.   
  
Or maybe that was the entire point and they wanted Toni to feel guilty over whether not saying the day was awful or not.   
  
Because after the first time you say it, it feels like it’s too needy to say the same thing the next day even though it’s true.   
  
Because once you get in this loop of saying _‘I’m fine’,_ while you’re really not you start convincing yourself that feeling miserable is normal.   
  
And that’s another thing! Normal! What the hell?!   
  
It just…sucks. Because you forget what healthy is.   
  
And by the time you spill your guts to somebody who asks the right questions, everybody is surprised and giving you the _'how could you not tell me?’_ Look.   
  
It’s plain awful.   
  
But life goes on.


	4. Gasping For Breath

Toni’s been speaking for as long as she can remember. Half-formed thoughts, explanations and observations swarming her head. Her skull has always felt full to bursting. 

 

When she was a child she could not bear having everything hammering in her head. She babbled and pointed and enunciated vowels and consonants that felt satisfying on her tongue. 

 

She stopped needing a soundboard for equations by the time she was six but by that point, it felt as if she couldn’t stop herself. 

 

By the time she was twelve and knew for sure just how much trouble her mouth could get her into she tried to stop. Covered her mouth with her palms but it felt like she was unravelling on the inside with everything gnawing at any coherent part of her brain. 

 

Eventually, she used it to her advantage. 

 

The phrase think before you speak is commonplace. Wise words for sure. 

 

Instead, Toni thinks as she speaks.

 

Distracts others with absent-minded conversation while she thinks and thinks. 

 

Whittles away at what’s troubling her the most. 

 

Now she can’t afford to. 

 

The helmet’s sockets flicker with life. She speaks lowly, needs to before the oxygen runs out. 


	5. Cavity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> However, with a cavity like hers it doesn't just fill when she's sick. Toni's cavity fills when she is beyond tired with so much to do.
> 
> It's like something is standing at the mouth of her ravine and screaming into it for her to do something. All it does is make the weight reverberate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: depression

There is a cavity in her chest.

It is hollow with edges that are like dulled blades. She feels sick.

It's like she's seven again and has come down with the flu. Toni knows what vomiting feels like, and it hurts, stings and makes her eyes tear up, but that is temporary. She gets the taste in her mouth and she knows. That is ordinary.

What is not is the before, not quite nausea that pools into her chest unevenly, weighing her down, nothing makes it ease. She cannot move, she has no choice but to stay flat on her back but, there is no relief.

It settles like soup in a quarter-filled thermos. It almost feels worse than what comes after.

However, with a cavity like hers it doesn't just fill when she's sick. Toni's cavity fills when she is beyond tired with so much to do.

It's like something is standing at the mouth of her ravine and screaming into it for her to do something. All it does is make the weight reverberate.

Toni wished she could pass out, take a sleeping pill and call it a day, but guilt is a banner she drapes herself in on a daily basis. One that has begun to wrap and stitch so closely to her skin Toni does not think she can rip it off.

The sky tends to be blue, so are her holograms and Antonia Stark feels like a mistake in her quiet moments.

It's fine.

The cavity always drains despite how long it feels.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm hoping to be able to update my other things after exams are done with.


End file.
